Max Payne 3 OST

Rockstar; 2012

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The new video game Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter that mixes cover-based and run-and-gun mechanics. Translated from the jargon, this means you peek over Max's shoulder as he hides behind stationary things and shoots at moving ones. He can also slow down time, turning frantic gunplay into underwater choreography in the manner of countless action films. The L.A. noise-rock band HEALTH's original score distinctively replicates this torpid frenzy, mostly by setting slow, languid themes against fast, urgent drums. In between, a moment of suspense is trapped and prolonged, and the feeling that something momentous is about to happen seldom flags. It's a generous and commanding piece of work, slightly checked by the homogenizing pressures of its format.

Max Payne 3 is organized around linear, contained events. This permitted HEALTH to create full-fledged compositions, from drafty FX hymns to throbbing anthems, instead of trying to rig up an album from bits of modular music-- a challenge faced by Amon Tobin with valor but mixed success on his fifth album, the score for Splinter Cell 3. But Max Payne 3 is still a pulse-pounding A-list action game, and the necessity for every rhythm to be impeccably flush, every change clearly telegraphed, keeps the music from feeling as dangerous as it might. It lumbers majestically through two modes, moody and awesome. You can never completely forget that some of it exists solely to make running down generic corridors feel heroic.

HEALTH habitually blend abrasive guitar and synth shards into clouds of heavenly opacity, tethered down by drum circles. This earthy yet ethereal sound, heralded by bands such as Boredoms and Liars, is a natural fit for Max Payne 3's pressurized slowness, although here, HEALTH sound more like their remix records than their mainline catalog, tearing down dance music to a brutish 4/4 thud and building shimmering towers of junk atop it. Any expansive collection of atmospheric instrumentals coming down the pike right now is going to call to mind Symmetry's epic Themes for an Imaginary Film, whose soft, rounded contours HEALTH answer with hard, brittle edges. The worst thing you can say about the score is that it sometimes effectively resorts to clichés.

HEALTH score easy points with liberal use of the musky attack-less string pads we call "cinematic" and rigid synth-and-bass arpeggios whorled with silvery John Carpenter fingerprints. The doomy chord pulses of "Shells" do exactly what they're meant to do: seamlessly get you hyped. You don't want to be distracted by any sonic quirks when you're trying to shoot a Brazilian commando in the face, though you might crave a few when you're not. But HEALTH also manage to sneak in things that freshen up the ears: Persian music inflections on "The Girl", vocal harmonies that find a whimsical seam between early music and Brian Wilson on "+90", and the baile funk slant of "Max Favela", one of the sole hints that the game takes place in sunny São Paulo and not Siberia.

Video gaming and music have a long history. Music helped arcade cabinets snare players. It provided auditory feedback on home consoles. In the 90s, notably in Japanese RPGs such as the Final Fantasy series, the irritatingly catchy ditty gave way to accomplished synthetic orchestral music, which could handle the emotional and narrative nuances emerging in games. In return, video games gave music a new market in lines such as Guitar Hero, plus heavily influenced new genres such as chillwave and, of course, chiptune. The core appeal of playing electronic instruments and playing video games is the same: Getting to release godlike powers in virtual space at the press of a button.

Back in 2005, a major artist like Tobin scoring a game felt novel, and it still slightly does. Plenty of games now use licensed music from indie bands, but few have original scores by name artists. But as games become more respectable and more like movies, as hard-pressed musicians seek out new revenue streams, and as interactivity continues to overtake passivity in our habits of virtual consumption, more frequent and closer collaborations between big-name artists and game designers look inevitable. HEALTH's quality but workmanlike release doesn't convince me that it'll be any great shakes for the standalone music market, but it's going to be fantastic for games.